Student News From Angi Stone-MacDonald

Past Student Governor

As many of you know from reading the website, this division is in the process of changing its name to the Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities (DADD). So, if you are interested in autism, you are in the right place. Because of our name change, I am going to focus my article on autism.

By now, everyone is well into the school year. It is probably cold where many people are. When it gets colder, I like to take a break by curling up on the couch with a good book. This week I was reading a book that I had assigned for one of my classes about a boy with autism called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. This fictional novel about a boy with autism chronicles a series of events in his neighborhood and teaches us about his interactions with his family and neighbors. Another excellent nonfiction book about autism is Let Me Hear Your Voice: A Family's Triumph Over Autism by Catherine Maurice. This book is written by the mother of a child with autism.

As students and future teachers, we need to work with children with autism and their families, but there is never enough time to get the experiences we want in our field placements or our student teaching. One way to increase our knowledge is to read books written by people with autism and their families to learn their perspectives. I encourage each of you to find one or two books about people with autism and read them this winter when you want to take a break from studying. Below, I have included a list of a few more books I can recommend.

Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind by Daniel Tammet